Olympic news: Fairytale finish eludes Vonn as Goggia romps to Gold

Goggia and Vonn’s rivalry was lit once again on the course but it would be the Italian who edged ahead with a near-perfect run to become Italy’s first ever winner of the Women’s Olympic Downhill. Vonn had been going well without any particular errors but her run just wouldn’t prove fast enough.

At 33, Vonn becomes the oldest ever female Olympic Alpine medalist with Bronze — just another trophy to add to the already-massive cabinet. Vonn was nonetheless disappointed as the final results came in — bursting into tears at one point — particularly at the fact these will be her last Olympics as she reminisced about the passing of her Grandfather.

Vonn has been one of the winningest skiers in history with 81 World Cup wins and four overall titles. Her stature as one of the greats will remain regardless but that success has never transferred over to Olympic titles which have remained elusive. Her Olympic history is summarised well by the bleacherreport.com:

«The 33-year-old first competed in the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City when she was 17, following it up with appearances in Torino, Italy, in 2006, Vancouver, Canada, in 2010 and now Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018. She missed the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, due to a torn ACL.

Vonn won a gold medal in downhill and a bronze in super-G at the 2010 Olympics, but she failed to medal in 2002 or 2006. She believed the 2018 Games were her chance to put a cap on her Olympic career.

«I want to end on a high note,» she said prior to the opening ceremony, per Simon Evans of Reuters. «I really want to put an exclamation point on my career. It took me until my third Olympics how to figure out how to deal with the pressure.»

Vonn will have one more attempt at a gold medal in the women’s combined event beginning Thursday in Pyeongchang.»

However, none of this should detract from Goggia’s and Mowinckel’s stunning runs for Gold and Silver. Could we be witnessing a passing of the guard? Possibly.